Shloka 11
Education and Conduct — Chanakya Niti
जानीयात्प्रेषणे भृत्यान्बान्धवान् व्यसनागमे ।
मित्रं चापत्तिकालेषु भार्यां च विभवक्षये ॥
jānīyāt preṣaṇe bhṛtyān bāndhavān vyasanāgame |
mitraṃ cāpattikāleṣu bhāryāṃ ca vibhavakṣaye ||
A servant is known when sent on an errand, kinsmen when calamity arrives, a friend in distress, and a wife when prosperity declines.
FAQs
In the nīti-śāstra milieu, aphorisms frequently classify social roles (retainers, kin, friends, spouse) and associate them with moments that reveal reliability—such as errands, misfortune, and loss of wealth. This reflects a courtly and household-centered social world in which loyalty and reciprocity were discussed as observable behaviors, a theme also compatible with broader South Asian didactic literature.
The verse frames reliability as situationally legible: performance in delegated work indicates the quality of a retainer; presence and support during calamity indicates the quality of kin; steadfastness in adversity indicates friendship; and constancy amid diminished resources indicates the spouse’s commitment. The definition operates through social function and crisis-based observation rather than abstract moral theory.
The construction uses parallel locatives (preṣaṇe, vyasanāgame, āpattikāleṣu, vibhavakṣaye) to create a compact evaluative schema. Key terms such as vyasana and āpatti overlap in the semantic field of misfortune/distress, producing rhetorical reinforcement, while vibhava-kṣaya (“waning of prosperity”) provides an economic register typical of pragmatic nīti discourse.